ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

FINAL LEARNING DIARY

AKUA SERWAA ANSAH

MIB31 GROUP A

COMPLETENESS AND TRANSFER

Leadership

From what I learnt in class, leadership is the process of a figure having influence on a group of people or an

organization as a whole. This figure bears the title of a leader and directs his followers toward a common goal

by setting an example and creating an environment in which the team members feel actively involved in the

entire process. Leadership can be seen from theoretical approaches which include the trait approach, the

behavioral approach and the contingency approach, which I found the most interesting. The trait theories of

leadership indicate that there are some people who inherit certain traits like ambition, which naturally define

them as leaders. As such leaders are born and not made. However one of the difficulties of this theory is the

ability to answer why some people possess some of these traits and qualities but are not leadership material.

The behavioral theories according to what I understood, is founded on the belief that leaders are made and not

born. Therefore there is much more focus on the behaviors that define a leader rather than the mental

qualities that they posses. Therefore people can learn to become leaders by picking up and improving those

behaviors. The contingency theory is based more on environmental variable which determines the appropriate

style of leadership to be applied. Therefore this theory summarizes that leadership success depends on the

environment, the leadership style and the type of followers and the circumstances at hand.

I understood that no leadership style is the best in all situations. I can relate to this as I had the opportunity to

lead a team in my former internship. I did my best to allow my members to have the opportunity to participate

fully in the task we were supposed to accomplish. In order for them to benefit from the experience I would

delegate responsibilities for them to handle on their own. Initially my trust in their performance was low since

they were beginners. For that situation my approach included more guidance and less autonomy. From my

experience I will not say I was born a leader. Most of these traits were learnt along the way to enable me

manage my team effectively.

Motivation

Another interesting topic studied during the course was motivation. This was explained as the process that

initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. In my own words I understood motivation to be a

way of encouraging individuals to exhibit desired behaviors or actions which are requisite to achieving a

certain goal. In an organization this factor is very important since there is the need to sustain a level of

commitment in an individual towards their job or responsibilities and reinforce their skills. This tends to have

an impact on the performance of the employees. The key elements of motivation are intensity, direction and

persistence. Among the theories established by Douglas McGregor in my opinion I believe that theory Y is

correct: The assumption that employees like work, are creative, seek responsibility and can exercise self-

direction. They however need to be guided to be able to carry out all these traits. This guidance have been

explained in a number of theories, goal setting theory is said to be very essential to performance thus defining

goals and delivering appropriate feedback enhances the performance of employees. The expectancy theory is

said to be based on the fact that employee motivation is an outcome of how much an individual wants to be

rewarded, the assessment that the action will lead to the expected performance and the belief that the

performance will lead to a reward. Employers and managers therefore need to adopt various strategies to

motivate workers. In my personal experience, I can identify my source of motivation as being rewarded with

appreciation verbally and being involved in more work. I will not deny the fact that monetary reward is a

necessity. But for me that will come anyways so the additional factor that would motivate me to work harder

is when I am commended and given more challenging responsibilities. This made me feel that my efforts were

appreciated and beneficial to my superiors enough for them to seek my participation in subsequent

assignments.

Team dynamics

A team is a number of people with skills which are aimed towards a common purpose or goal. Our lesson

identified many types of groups of which the formal group will be relevant for the context of an organization.

They usually have designated work assignments and established tasks that they need to accomplish in order

for the team as a whole to accomplish its goal. All teams have norms that they abide by which range from

performance norms to appearance norms to social arrangement norms. Group members are required to

conform to these norms in order to be accepted as members of the group. The issue of social loafing is an

interesting subject on the fact that individuals tend to work less when in groups than when working as

individuals. Teams are governed by external influences which they have to abide by. I have had to work in

teams for organizing or serving on working groups. Most of the time the work was divided among the team

members to speed up the process. From this I learnt to respect the views of every member even if I felt they

were irrelevant.

Conflict

From our lessons conflict is a disagreement over issues of substance, and emotional antagonisms that cause

frictions between individuals and groups. Some of the causes of conflicts in an organization include

communication or miscommunication, and structural variables which include competition for limited

resources, power struggles and office politics and then conflict in teams which results from differences in

ideologies and individual goals. The views about conflict have evolved over the years as the traditional view

sees conflict as something that is to be avoided because of its harmful effects. The human relations view is

more objective and sees conflict as inevitable in groups. The interactionist view also believes that conflict is a

positive force in a group and necessary for the group to perform effectively. I believe that conflict is inevitable

therefore there is the need to properly manage in order to reap benefits. My approach is to deal with conflicts

immediately, than drag them. I had disagreements with a colleague who I saw to be bossy and liked to give

unnecessary instructions even though it was not in his place to do so. We therefore had a few altercations but

did not let it manifest into anything serious by being open about our dislikes. It is best to deal with a conflict

immediately before it runs out of control.

DEVELOPMENT

The topics that were covered for various areas of organizational behavior tend to have numerous links. In my

view leadership and motivation go together. This view is supported in the article by Daniel Coleman

Leadership gets results. One of the main roles of a leader exuded in this text is how leaders motivate their

members to guide them to achieve the goals of the group. In order for a leader to reach a high level of

leadership there needs to be a great sense of self motivation and motivation for his followers. This tends to be

quite complicated as one of the main difficulties leaders face is the ability to get their followers to be

passionate about the goals that they are set out to achieve. How can a leader successfully portray their vision

into the minds of others? The response to this seems to be intertwined in the various leadership styles used to

manage organizations. The leadership styles can be applied in many ways however according to the article

only four out of the six have a positive effect on the subjects. The ability to exert the right leadership style in

the right circumstances has a corresponding effect on the team. For example leadership which involves

minimum supervision tends to trigger the creativity of the members and enables their self motivation. This

will make the workers more diligent and drive them to find different solutions to increase productivity.

Another link that can be established is between individual values and group behavior. Individuals who form

part of a team come with their different attitudes and personalities which make them unique. These can be

positive or negative depending on the circumstances or the work at hand. The various attitudes can be

complementary and move the group ahead at the same time it can retard group progress when differing values

and beliefs clash, and make it difficult for team members to understand each other. The environment

surrounding the team also plays a role in affecting the individuals behavior as much as the individual affects

the team, because behavior can be shaped through learning. Therefore individual values and teams must be

managed in a way for them to complement each other for the success of the group, by proper application of

positive reinforcements, negative reinforcements and the required punishments. The inability for members to

properly manage their differing attitudes can be illustrated in a personal experience with a team member who,

a night before a presentation had modified all the slides because in her opinion the information on the previous

slides were not good enough. Her new ideas were not bad however all this could have been avoided if she had

shared it with the team for us to work on our individual parts ourselves. This affected our final grade for the

project.

I will also talk about the link between leadership and organizational change. I believe that leadership has a

very essential role to play in organizational change. As leaders are meant to possess the knowledge and skills

to tackle goal oriented tasks one must know that to be an effective leadership change is bound to be

implemented. The ability for a leader to effectively manage this change will depend on the leadership

approaches used in properly communicating and implementing this change. For example a leader who

encourages participation will be able involve others in the change process to be able to reduce the amount of

resistance that he faces. As a successful leader is required to possess the qualities of being able to identify him

with the needs of others, this should be taken into consideration when planning the targets to be able to put in

place the required training for the others to easily accustom themselves to the change.

REFLEXIVITY

I developed a keen interest for the concepts during the course because I viewed them as very essential for the

success of an organization. Class discussions and explanations given in class gave me a deeper understanding

of the concepts discussed above and how they could be effectively applied by managers when managing an

organization. To support this, the case studies that were discussed and worked on in class gave me practical

understanding on how some of these concepts could be applied in real life situations and how to solve issues.

For example the case on Bobs meltdown gave me the opportunity to think about how conflicts develop

among employees and how they can be fuelled by wrong approaches. The inclusion of the different

perspectives of other individuals showed the importance of digging deeper into the source of the conflict to be

able to tackle it from its roots. The point of view of others revealed that Bob had a history with bad attitude

towards other employees although he was a very dedicated worker. This contributed to the solution and

showed how to manage problem employees who at the same time seems to be an asset to the organization.

Also result-oriented approaches must be taken carefully when changing behavior in an employee to avoid

demotivating the individual or undermining the authority he possesses in the organization.

It was also interesting to work on some of the assignments as teams. Team work was helpful considering the

load of work and limited time. My team usually divided into smaller groups and worked on different

questions. We would then review the various parts as a team to make corrections. Being in a team therefore

reduced the workload and facilitated the process and the various ideas and skills coming from different people

enriched the assignments for the module.

In conclusion I would advice that one of the key elements in an organization is leadership. Mangers should

apply the appropriate leadership styles that fit both the organization and its goals. whatever is applied from

the start point will have a ripple effect on other areas be it team management, how to motivate employees or

how to effect organizational change. It will also be essential for every manager to have training and in depth

knowledge about organizational behavior to ensure effective management.